The Rangers were playing the Flyers and a puck hit a player in the eye. He crumpled to the ice, kicking his legs in pain. A pool of blood formed beneath his face and the Madison Square Garden crowd gasped.

It was April of 1974. On Tuesday night, the same teams met and the same thing happened.

Isn’t it about 39 years past time to learn that eye protection is a good idea in hockey?

The most recent victim is New York’s Marc Staal. What happened to him has been described as gruesome and horrific. The video has been labeled “Disturbing Content” on some websites.

If there had been websites in 1974, they would have said the same about Barry Ashbee. They were saying it just two years ago when an errant stick slashed Chris Pronger’s right eye.

They say the same thing every time, and the players union is as deaf as it is blind. The league wants visors to be mandatory, but the NHLPA has to approve such a measure.

It has refused, claiming some players find visors uncomfortable. They think visors hamper their vision. Besides, real men don’t wear visors. As Don Cherry once said on Hockey Night in Canada, “most of the guys who wear them are European or French guys, right?”

Yes, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Then you realize how preposterous it is to play hockey without protection. Take Pronger—his career is all but over, and while he sounds at peace, he recently told Sportsnet that he still deals with headaches and nausea, and has lost some of his peripheral vision.

“What’s happened was I had 30-year-old eyes. I got hit and the doctor told me I had 60-year-old eyes,” Pronger said. “I don’t have very good peripheral vision. That so-called sixth sense? I used to really have a good one. Now, I couldn’t feel anybody comin’ around a corner. My kids scare me all the time.

“That used to be what I was known for: knowing where everybody was; having a feel for who was around me. Now I don’t have that.”

Imagine football without facemasks. Only this is worse, with frozen pucks and deflections and skate blades added to the mix.

The American Hockey League started requiring visors in 2006. The NCAA has long mandated full-face guards. Just about every minor league and European league won’t let players skate without eye protection.

It seems everybody in the world realizes the dangers except the NHLPA. Though its members are increasingly getting the message.

In 2001, only 29 percent of NHL players wore visors. It was 68 percent last season. Players like Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin and Steven Stamkos somehow manage with visors. But approximately 220 players still go out every game wearing only helmets.

The baseball union knew steroids were undermining the game, yet it fought testing. Its goal was to protect the rights of players, regardless of how that damaged the sport.There’s nothing underhanded about not wearing a visor. Players are grown men—and they are also not the best people to weight the risks.

He said that in 2009 shortly after he’d had seven teeth knocked out by a puck. The next year a puck hit Laperriere near the eye. He suffered post-concussion syndrome and nerve damage to the eye and had to retire.

At some point, adults have to step in and protect the animals of habit from themselves. NASCAR drivers used to snicker at wearing protective neck and head restraints.

Then the toughest hombre of them all, Dale Earnhardt, broke his neck and died. A few races later, everybody was using the protective systems. Now no driver would dream of getting in a car without one.

The union said that should be left up to individual players. Individuals like Laperriere or Bryan Berard or Al MacInnis or Steve Yzerman or Mats Sundin or Manny Malhotra or Tom Poti.

They are the more notable players who suffered eye injuries from pucks. There are many others. Some recovered. Others were never the same. All undoubtedly wished they’d been wearing a visor when the puck hit their face.

Ashbee never played again after Game 4 in playoffs against the Rangers. He sat on the bench in dark glasses as the Flyers eventually won the Stanley Cup.

It’s too early to tell what will happen to Staal. But there are 442 healthy eyes still out there, flying around the ice unprotected.